Bottlenecked
by Princess Pinky
Summary: Jenny meets a man in an cantina who inspires a new way for her to contact her father.


**A/N: **So, spoilers for _The Doctor: His Lives and Times_ (the U.S. version is exactly the same except its title is _The Doctor's Lives and Times_) which is a reference book for the Whoniverse with some Easter egg information sprinkled through. On page 205, there's a letter from Jenny to The Doctor and that's what this story is based on.

_**Bottlenecked**_

There was a faint scent of lipscone, a plant akin to tobacco that had originated on Pluto and smelt vaguely like freshly printed 21st century American currency, but the predominate stench was the of tang of alien sweat. The room was dark, illuminated only by a few dull beer colored lamps that gave the walls' arches of blue and green paint a yellow stained appearance. For a cantina, it was small, but moderately filled.

Jenny had managed to steal a barstool before a group of bald, hulking creatures that communicated by barking like Earth canines stole the remainder of the room at the bar. She hunkered down as growling entered the cocktail of cantina sounds and motioned to the Argolin bartender.

"Another Draconian Sake?"

Jenny nodded. At first she studied the bartender as she worked, deftly swinging the glass liquor bottles as though they were swords in some fanciful circus performance, but eventually she had the movements tracked so that, if she wanted, she could have done them herself. At that, Jenny grew bored and swiveled on her stool to stare at the cantina patrons.

An Ood was serving a round of Vraggs to a table of armored Sontarans, a Sycorax warrior sat alone in a corner booth chugging a Martian ale, and a creature with scarlet dreads and the blue bubblegum skinned body of a roid raging body builder was sipping a Mif's Ruin.

"Remoraxian, you don't want to mess with one of those."

Jenny stirred from her reverie to find a tall, dark haired gentleman at her side. She gave him a once over: charcoal gray pants, heavy boots, a midnight colored dress shirt, red braces, and a heavy woolen long coat. "Why not?"

"Interstellar parasites," the man explained. "Tried to occupy Earth in the mid-seventies. That is to say, the nineteen-seventies."

Jenny's blonde brow piqued. "Are you a historian?"

The man chortled. "I wouldn't call myself that, but I've been around the universal block a time or ten." He offered his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness, by the way, and the pleasure is all mine."

Jenny lent her hand to the captain and was unsurprised when he brought the back of her hand to his lips in a delicate kiss. "Jenny."

"Jenny," Jack grinned. "Lovely name. Short for Jennifer?"

Jenny's lips parted as she considered explaining that it was short for _generated anomaly_, but now that she was into her second year on her own, she was growing tired to explaining what a generated anomaly was and how she had come to run away from Messaline because she was looking for her father. Instead, she just shook her head.

"Draconian Sake," the bartender announced.

Jenny spun back to face the bar, just as the Argolin turned to her next customer. She picked up her drink and took a long swig.

"Expensive drink," Jack observed.

"I have a gift card."

"For a cantina?"

Jenny shrugged. "Let's just say I did a good deed and leave it at that."

"Fair enough." Jack picked up a hypervodka from the bar. "Cheers?"

Jenny clinked her glass against the captain's and took another swig. The drink was as cold as compacted snow when it first met her tongue, but once it crawled into her throat it began a luxurious burn like a just-too-hot bath.

"So what brings you here?" Jack asked. He set his empty glass down with a chink and snapped his fingers for another.

"To the planet?"

"To the booze."

Jenny turned around on her seat again and braced her back against the edge of the bar. There was no empty stool for Jack, but he appeared to be happy enough standing beside her, so she decided against offering to move to a table or booth. "I've been looking for someone."

"You a bounty hunter?"

"Not like that. It's my dad. A few years ago he left me…there was a misunderstanding–"

Jack nodded as if he already knew where Jenny was going with her story. "I've been there."

Jenny doubted that, but chose not to say anything to the contrary. "Anyway, I've been trying track him down ever since. I just have no idea how to contact him."

"Thanks, Trax," Jack winked as the bartender set another hypervodka down for him.

Trax scowled. "Wink at me again and I'll toss you out of here with my bare hands."

Jenny suppressed a laugh. "History?"

"Not the kind I'd like," Jack admitted. "But Trax is solid so long as you pay your tab and don't bust the fixings."

"Which one didn't you do?"

Instead of answering, Jack took a long gulp of his spirit. When he set the empty glass down, he wiped his mouth his sleeve. "You know, back in the old days soldiers stuck in the middle of the war would write love letters to their sweethearts back home, seal 'em up in glass bottles, and throw them into the sea. I had a friend, Private Hughes: gave him my ginger beer bottle and he threw a letter for his wife into the English Channel."

"Did she get it?"

Jack looked at the floor. "Private Hughes was shot two days later and no, it never reached Mrs. Hughes. But," he looked up again with renewed hope, "it was found in the Thames some years later and was delivered to their daughter who was living in New Zealand at the time."

Jenny mulled over the story as she polished off the remainder of her drink.

"Jack! Jack!" A breathless young man with an attractively round baby face pushed his way between the tight maze of tables and chairs. "I just got your message. I'm so sorry, I got mixed up and I've been waiting at the pub across town."

Jack grabbed the young man by his lapels and for a moment Jenny thought he might throw him up against the wall, but instead the captain pressed a wet kiss to the man's lips. She smiled. "I guess that's my cue. It was nice to meet you, Captain."

"You don't have to go," Jack said. "This is my…" he hesitated. "…friend, Alonso. Jenny, Alonso. Alonso, Jenny."

Jenny shook the flushed man's hand and noted his pale grip. "No, I have to run, but it's been fun. Perhaps we'll run into one another again sometime?"

Jack nodded. "Perhaps we will. And good luck with your dad."

Jenny nodded to both men before she left. On her way back to her _borrowed_ ship, she recounted Jack's story of Private Hughes in her head. She was suddenly imagining what she might say to her father, if she were to write such a letter, and as she passed around to the alley behind the cantina she noticed some broken glass beneath her trainers. A thought wormed its way into her mind and she quickly moved to the dumpster, flipped open the lid, and began to rummage about until she found what she was looking for: an empty ale bottle.

The young Time Lady brushed herself off and returned to her ship, hidden beneath a gray tarp and some shrubbery not far from the alley. She climbed inside, washed the bottle out in the small bathroom, and set it to dry on the edge of the sink.

Thereafter she crawled into the cockpit and took up a pen and paper. Hardly anyone wrote by hand anymore and by the 51st century, pens were only available in antique stores, but Jenny had helped the curator of a museum a few months prior, and he had rewarded her with various artifacts of her choosing.

Somehow, the pen and paper had reminded her of her father. She wasn't sure why at the time, but now she decided that the gut feeling to take them—of all the things she could have chosen instead—had been leading to this moment. Slowly, she propped her knees up in the chair and began to write:

_Hi Dad_

_Yes, it's really me. Not dead._

Jenny had thought about that a lot: why she hadn't died. She still didn't have an answer, though she had her theories, so she wrote those down and went on to explain what she'd been up to and the fun she'd been having out among the stars. She paused her pen and wondered, with a twinkle in her eye, if her experience had been anything like his. By then, half her page was filled and she went on to tell him about the man in the cantina and as she neared the end of the page, she wrote:

_I'll try to make you proud of me._

_Love_

_Jenny_

A week later she managed to track down a cork—surprisingly hard to find in the sixty-first century—and with her letter securely inside, she pushed open her ship's escape hatch with one hand. The air shield was up, so she hauled herself onto the roof of the ship and sat down cross-legged, awed once again merry dances of the planets and galaxies vibrating within the pores of her skin. In the silence, she could _almost_ hear their gravity.

"I know the Captain said they used to throw you out to sea," she said, tapping the shoulder of the bottle. "But from what I hear, my dad surfs the temporal tides. Now I can't exactly throw you back in time, but I can set you to drift and maybe, one day, he'll happen upon you, hm?" Jenny gave the bottle a kiss. "A girl can dream." She stood, arched her arm like a baseball player, and flung the bottle into the stars.


End file.
